It is an advance in research against cancer: French scientists have developed a potentially capable molecule to destroy cancer cells that hit chemotherapy so far.
Published the 08/05/2025 08:34 Reading time: 2min
For the moment, it is only a question of academic research, but this advance could lead to a new class of drugs in the future with treatments that can eliminate metastatic cancers, against which medicine is still helpless. Metastases are responsible for 70% of cancer deaths, as these cells resist the treatments and settle elsewhere.
-This team of scientists from the Institut Curie, Inserm, and CNRS discovered that one of the secrets of these cancer cells, to escape standard chemotherapy, is to accumulate certain metals, such as iron or copper, in order to be more resistant to drugs and to be able to spread further in the body.
Researchers discovered how to make this metastase defense strategy a weakness. Starting from the principle that a cell that accumulates certain metals is also sensitive to oxidation, the researchers have developed a molecule, fentomycin (fento-1) which enters these resistant cancer cells and which causes their death by oxidation.
The effectiveness of this molecule has been demonstrated for the moment in laboratory on biopsies, tumors taken from patients as well as in living mice, with good tolerance. These results were published in the journal Nature.
“After 25 years of research, I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel“Said Raphaël Rodriguez, CNRS research director at the Institut Curie, who overseen this work.”But it will now be necessary that other structures take over for the industrial development of this new molecule.“The researcher is creating a start-up to move forward on this track.”I have the hope that investors understand the whole issue of this discovery and that they will take the risk of financed its development. “
